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How to paint ants

This article was taken from the July 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content bysubscribing online.

Ever tried to tell ants apart? Insect biologists grapple with this every day. When

Andrew Quitmeyer worked at an ant-behaviour lab at Arizona State University, he was blown away by the scientists' solution. "They manually paint them," he says. Here's how to daub a colony.

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Assemble your tools

Set up with paint (the stuff for plastic models is fine) and mini-brushes of "single strands of human hair", says Quitmeyer.

Bring a microscope and some carbon dioxide (try an aquarium supplier). Anaesthetise your ant. Secure it face down on a sponge bed, tied with a strand of hair.

Painstakingly code

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Slide the ant under your microscope and pull out a chart that lists a four-colour mix for each ant in the colony. Use the hair-brushes to dot the colours on to the head, thorax, and left and right abdomen. Pull out the ant with forceps. You have about three minutes until it wakes up.

Dry off

Slip the painted ant into a drying chamber, such as a small plastic dish. "They sit there, wake up slowly and dry off quickly, without rubbing off paint on to others in the colony," says Quitmeyer. The whole process takes novices about 15 minutes per ant; experts manage it in five.

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Sit back and watch

Once every ant has been marked, you can track each as it goes about daily life. "We're looking at communication -- which ants talk to each other, how often and when," says Quitmeyer. Although scientists enjoy painting their ants, Quitmeyer's ultimate goal is to create a robot ant painter.